It’s easy to get a bit disillusioned with award ceremonies. You head there with a nomination, hoping that this might be your year. Sometimes it is and you come back not just with the gong, but the respect of your peers too. But sometimes it’s not to be. And while it’s tempting to shrug your shoulders, pretend you’re not really bothered or that some terrible injustice has befallen you, actually it’s always better just to hold your hands up and say well done.

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We always knew when we created the direct mail for our Swinton Bikes Dealer campaign that we had a strong piece of direct marketing on our hands. And when the results came in for the piece we not only had a very happy client… we also had a potential award-winner!

So it’s good to hear that the nice people at the B2B Marketing Awards have agreed with our thoughts and nominated us in the category of ‘Best Use of Direct Mail’… and ‘Best Lead Generation Campaign’.

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Writing a radio ad is one of the few opportunities a copywriter has to work in a completely unique medium, and I love it. Radio ads can be really effective too, if you get it right. And really annoying, if you get it wrong. So when we were briefed to create an attention-grabbing radio ad to entice tall or large fellas into High and Mighty stores we knew there’d be some big challenges… excuse the pun.

The problem is, the kind of chap that needs extra long trousers or XXXL size t-shirts can be a little bit coy about his ample dimensions. This initially came as a surprise to me, but then I am the daughter of a 6ft 7 scouser with hands like bunches of bananas who’s very proud of his stature… and his ability to reach things on the highest of shelves. I suppose their self-consciousness can be likened to the way that long tall sallies like me shy away from describing themselves as having a ‘boyish’ figure because of its unfeminine and unflattering connotations.

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Last night I was looking forward to settling down in front of the TV to watch a rather interesting debate on the subject of direct mail.  I was expecting a well balanced argument from respected Panorama reporter Tom Heap looking at the pros and cons of the industry.  What I got was anything but balanced.  I haven’t seen such a one-sided fight since, well it was Saturday night actually….  broken toe?  Come off it David Haye, you can do better than that.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised given the title “Why hate junk mail?” but Mr Heap’s argument was not only unbalanced but incredibly naive, not to mention inaccurate.  I also found it incredibly distasteful and dis-respectful to the direct mail industry to tackle the subject of ‘Scam mail’ in the same programme.

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We’re pleased to announce that Adrian Rowe will become Chairman with immediate effect, leaving Creative Director and Deputy MD, Julian Gratton to take on the full time role of Managing Director of the business.

Adrian Rowe has lived and breathed direct marketing for nearly 30 years, carving out a career first in the home shopping sector with spells at Empire Stores, Next and Great Universal Stores.  After moving agency side in 1991 with Interpublic agency SBW, he helped to found Red C (formerly RSCR) in 1994. His contribution to the industry was recognised in 2001, when he was made an Honorary Life Fellow of the IDM.

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Red C Account Director, Steve White, he’s a funny one. Not content with banging on about how Spurs are now effectively European champions following their victory over Inter Milan the other week (pffft!), he’s now on the verge of making an even bigger fool of himself with his “online is better than offline” tirade.

The thing is, what Mr White fails to grasp is that Online Vs Offline isn’t a boxing match, or a playground scrap, or a my-dad-is-bigger-than-your-dad-type argument. No, no this is bigger than that. This is about war.

Preparing for battle

See, your online marketing is like your infantry, your ground troops. These are the communications you send in to do a job and report back instantly. And that’s what they do. You send your email, people respond, you get results. Job done. You’re in and out and back home in time for cigars and a debrief.

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We’ve cracked open the champagne again today at Red C towers after learning that we’ve been nominated for the 2010 DMA Awards for our triggered email marketing campaign for Swinton Insurance. Our campaign uses timely and relevant triggered emails to talk to and engage with our customers and prospects throughout the year and has delivered some impressive results for Swinton.

The triggered campaign was created to engage with an audience of 1.3 million throughout the 11 months of the year when their core insurance wasn’t due for renewal and deliver a new online lead source in an increasingly competitive and crowded marketplace. Ultimately we wanted to drive quotes through the Swinton site but to also ensure that brand engagement was maintained every month through a consistently high open rate, low unsubscribe rate and a low cost per quote.

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Back when I was a student, there were a couple of songs that everybody seemed to go gaga over. The first was by a band called Stiltskin entitled ‘Inside’ and the other was by an act called Babylon Zoo whose song was called ‘Spaceman’.

Both of these songs are notable for the fact that they became so well known in the UK because they were first aired to the British public via Levi adverts. In the case of Spaceman, the interest in the track resulted in it going straight to number one, where it stayed for five weeks. The track also went to Number 1 in the single charts in twenty-three countries and at the time Babylon Zoo held the record for the fastest selling single for a UK debut artist.

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As we all know, in any relationship, it’s the small things that matter. Yet what many people don’t realise is that it’s not only in our personal relationships that small things can have a big effect… they can also have a similar result in the relationships marketers, brands and companies have with their customers or business partners.

And why do small things matter? Well, as anyone who has ever bought a girl flowers knows; something small but effective can have a kind of result that is absolutely out of proportion to the cost.

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We’ve all got a cupboard or a drawer that we fill with random bits of junk or those items that you never throw away, just on the off chance that one day you might need them.  I was sifting through my very own cupboard of this type last weekend when I came across my old A-Level Media Studies ring binder amongst old toaster instructions and dead batteries.  The temptation was too great so I took a gander.  I was quite impressed.  I was quite the academic.

Anyway, whilst sifting through the binder I came across a project entitled “My favourite advertising campaign”.  The campaign I had chosen was the United Colours of Benetton.  Within the report I had showcased some on my favourite ads and to be honest with you, I was blown away all over again.

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